Former Champions Murray, Clijsters Awarded US Open Wildcards

The US Open announced their wildcards for the event which begins in less than three weeks. At the top of the list are former champions Andy Murray and Kim Clijsters.

Murray, who is just a few ranking spots away from a direct entry, has been preparing for New York.

Clijsters, a US Open winner in 2009 and 2010, will make her first Grand Slam appearance since the 2012 US Open. After that event, the 37-year-old Belgian returned in March losing first rounds in Dubai and Monterrey.

Other men receiving wildcards were Ulises Blanch, Maxime Cressy, Sebastian Korda, Thai-Son Kwiatkowski, Michael Mmoh, Brandon Nakashima and JJ Wolf.

Women’s also went to Usue Arconada, CiCi Bellis, Francesca Di Lorenzo, Caroline Dolehide, Ann Li, Robin Montgomery and Whitney Osuigwe.

Wildcards are usually swapped between the US Open, the Australian and the French. But with travel restrictions, outside of the former champions, the wildcards went to Americans.

PLAYER NOTES
Murray, 33, is ranked No. 129 and will be playing his first US Open since 2018. The former world No. 1 from Great Britain has won three major singles titles and 46 ATP titles and has come back from multiple hip surgeries in 2018-19. He won his first major singles title at the 2012 US Open and also reached the final in 2008.

Blanch, 22, of Orlando, Fla., is ranked No. 242. He won his second career ATP Challenger singles title in Ann Arbor, Mich., in January and went 17-6 in singles in early 2020, including a victory over former world No. 32 Pablo Andujar.

Cressy, 23, of Los Angeles, is ranked No. 164. He reached two ATP Challenger singles finals in February, winning the title in Drummondville. He played four years at UCLA and was an NCAA doubles champion and a singles and doubles All-American as a senior in 2019.

Korda, 20, of Bradenton, Fla., is ranked No. 224. He won 41 pro matches and reached two ATP Challenger finals in 2019. He is a former world junior No. 1 and won the 2018 Australian Open boys’ singles title. His father, Petr, won the 1998 Australian Open men’s singles title.

Kwiatkowski, 25, of Charlotte, N.C., is ranked No. 183 and won his first career ATP Challenger singles title in February at Newport Beach. He was a three-time All-American and won three NCAA team championships at the University of Virginia, also winning the NCAA singles title as a senior in 2017.

Mmoh, 22, of Bradenton, Fla., is ranked No. 182. A former Top-100 player, Mmoh won his fifth career ATP Challenger singles title in 2019. He is a former world junior No. 2 and won the USTA Boys’ 18s national title in 2016.

Nakashima, 19, of San Diego, is ranked No. 220, rising more than 500 spots in the rankings in the last eight months. He was the ACC Rookie of the Year at the University of Virginia in 2019 before turning pro following his freshman season and reached the quarterfinals at the Delray Beach Open ATP 250 in February.

Wolf, 21, of Cincinnati, is ranked No. 144. He went 15-3 in singles in early 2020, winning two ATP Challenger singles titles. He starred for Ohio State for three seasons, earning All-America and Big Ten Player of the Year honors as a junior in 2019.

Clijsters, the International Tennis Hall of Famer and three-time US Open women’s singles champion (2005, 2009-10), will be playing the US Open for the first time since her second retirement in 2012. The 37-year-old Belgian holds four major singles titles and 41 WTA titles and became the first mother to hold the world No. 1 ranking. She returned to the tour at the beginning of this year and currently is not ranked.

Arconada, 21, of Naples, Fla., is ranked No. 138. She partnered with Dolehide to win doubles gold at the Pan American Games last summer and won three pro singles titles in 2019, two W25-level tournaments and the W60 in Honolulu.

Bellis, 21, of Orlando, Fla., is ranked No. 304. She is a former world No. 35 who was named the WTA’s Newcomer of the Year in 2017. She missed nearly 20 months of play while undergoing wrist and elbow surgeries, returning to action in November 2019 and reaching the Australian Open third round in January.

Di Lorenzo, 23, of New Albany, Ohio, is ranked No. 128 and won her first ITF W60-level singles title in 2019. She turned pro in 2017 after two standout seasons at Ohio State, where she was a two-time All-American and won the NCAA doubles title as a sophomore.

Dolehide, 21, of Orlando, Fla., is ranked No. 134. A 2019 US Open doubles semifinalist, Dolehide won two ITF W60-level singles titles in 2019 and brought home the singles silver and doubles gold medals from the Pan American Games last summer in Lima, Peru.

Li, 20, of Devon, Pa., is ranked No. 131. She is a former Wimbledon girls’ singles finalist who qualified and reached the Australian Open second round in January. She won 44 pro singles matches in 2019 and reached the finals of three ITF tournaments at the W60 level and above.

Montgomery, 15, of Washington, D.C., is ranked No. 600 professionally and No. 5 in the juniors. A product of the National Junior Tennis & Learning chapter at the JTCC in College Park, Md., Montgomery led the U.S. to the 16-and-under Junior Fed Cup title and won the prestigious Orange Bowl girls’ 18s title in 2019. She won her first pro singles title at a W25 event in March in Las Vegas.

Osuigwe, 18, of Bradenton, Fla., is ranked No. 143. A former world junior No. 1 and the 2017 French Open girls’ singles champion, Osuigwe won her second career pro singles title in 2019, at a W80-level event in Charlottesville, Va.